Thank you all for reviewing! And penultimate chapter, what is this? Wow... one more, you guys ;-;

Happy fall back and sleep an extra hour day! :)

The first thing Winry did when she opened her door to meet the two alchemists waiting on her doorstep was stop moving entirely.

She didn't yell at him. She didn't slap him. She didn't slam the door in his face.

She just opened the door, then stopped.

Ed shifted uneasily, stomach lurching so unsettlingly he really thought he was about to throw up. His face hot and his insides squirming and his legs starting to tremble, he looked to the ground.

Winry still didn't say anything.

"...Hi," he croaked out at last. His voice came out pathetically tiny, and Ed really thought he would've turned tail and ran, if his feet hadn't been too numb to manage it.

A foot or two behind him, he heard Roy shift uncomfortably, just as silent as Winry. Neither of them said a single word, and Ed found himself just as speechless as them.

After several long, suffocating moments, Winry just fell.

He saw her drop numbly back, landing hard to sit on the tallest step with her hands fallen limply by her sides a tiny breath escaping her with the force of the fall- but she didn't wince. Her numb, shocked stare didn't even shift. She just continued to look at him with wide, stunned eyes, mouth dropped open, the look on her face almost chillingly empty of comprehension or understanding.

It was better than he'd feared. It was also better than he really deserved.

But Ed knew that standing there like this, trying to wait for Winry to make the next move, was wrong. It just wasn't fair. He was the one to have kept everything from her like this. He was the one to have broken into her life over seven years after leaving it. He was the reason she was sitting there, limp with shock, and he was the reason why she'd been left behind alone seven years ago- and he was the reason that she was going to get her heart broken all over again.

It wasn't fair of him to make her wait any longer anymore.

"I'm sorry," he said thickly, then coughed and cleared his throat. It didn't help to dislodge the emotion welling there, not at all, and his stomach lurched threateningly again. He tried again. "I'm s-sorry... Winry."

His old friend twitched spastically, shoulders jerking as her face started to contort in shock. A hand jumped up to cover her mouth, clutching desperately tight, but even that couldn't muffle or hide the distraught lines twisting into her face or the slow building of tears in her eyes.

It was the fact that she looked so much older than he remembered that made it so much harder to keep going on. So much more... different.

As different, he knew, as he himself had to look. Changed. Unfamiliar.

Different.

Older, because she'd once been so young- and so had he, and so had Al. But he'd made hurt her over and over until he'd forced her to leave childhood behind with him, and Al had died, young forever-

And it's your fault.

"...I'm sorry, Winry" he said again finally, each word an anguishing miracle to force out but he endured it all because she deserved it, and he didn't. She deserved nothing less than the truth, and for once in his life, he'd be able to give her what she deserved. "I'm sorry. ...Al is dead."

And there it finally was. The last terrible, unforgivable truth, right out there in the open where he couldn't deny it any longer. There it was. He'd said it. Al was dead.

Those words, somehow, had become more familiar to him now than his childhood friend looked now.

He knew the admission that his brother was dead better than he knew her.

And for the first time, he realized that Winry wasn't the only one coming into this with a broken heart.

It seemed to take a few moments for the words to actually sink in, his old friend still motionless and stricken features frozen in rapt disbelief. At first there was no reaction at all, such a chilling lack of an answer that he almost withdrew another step, nerves alive with the apprehension and terror of the blow he'd just given her, the pain he knew he was going to wrench out from her- but he couldn't let himself run away. He'd run when he was twelve, he'd run away away seven years ago, he'd run away five years ago... he'd spent these whole last five months just running.

He had to stop it now, or he never would.

So Ed ignored his terrified nausea, and his shaking hands, and he shelved his own grief to force himself another step closer to where Winry just sat there, hands over her mouth, eyes now flooded with tears. "I'm sorry-" he coughed, almost choking on it, god the words were even harder to get out now, but he had to, he had to do this for her, "I'm s-sorry I couldn't- c-couldn't bring him... home for you. I couldn't... I tried. I'm sorry. I promise, Winry, I tried, but I just- I wasn't enough! And I'm sorry, and- and-"

His breath caught again, torturous in his chest as the words again stumbled to a lurching halt, the guilt and anguish wrenching him to silence to stop a crack from dissolving into a shout. This was it. He was here, he was home, with Winry, it was the last step, everything was finally done-

And Al wasn't here with him.

Al would never be here with him again.

The breath left him again in a shocked gasp and it suddenly took everything he had not to follow Winry to the ground on his knees, legs turned to jelly and stomach dropped straight to his feet. The fact hit him like being punched in the gut over and over again, just that simple fact, no more and no less- not that it was his fault, not everything else that had happened to him in the concentration camp, not the anguish of watching Rainart execute him and the torture of Ed executing him straight back, not the knowledge of how he'd hurt Roy or what he was doing to Winry right now but just the simple fact that Al was dead.

He was finally back home. The place he'd spent all his life running towards...

And in that terrible, anguishing moment, he realized that it didn't matter, because Al wasn't here with him, and he never would be again.

The grief knocked him breathless and for one heartwrenching moment, the world spun so violently if it hadn't been for Roy suddenly appearing behind him, hands on his shoulders, he really would've fallen and not been able to get up again.

"I'm- sorry-" he gasped out and self-disgust and anguish swept through him again; god, the words were so broken he could barely understand them himself, she deserved so much more from him- and now she was doubled over, hands still clutched to her mouth and sobbing, because of him, but he just couldn't stop. "I'm sorry- you- you d-don't have to forgive me, Winry, but- you never have to forgive me for this, but I- but I just- w-wanted- Winry-"

Winry, with one single, wordless cry, threw herself up off the porch and flung herself straight into his arms.

Something in him shattered.

"I'm sorry-" he gasped miserably again, because he just couldn't stop himself. The words broke and shattered and they still forced themselves out again, this time more of a griefstricken moan, and instinct drove his arms up to wrap them back around her as she clutched onto his jacket and cried. He tried to swallow his own sob, but when the first one came out he couldn't stop the next one, or the one after that, and soon he was crying too hard to talk and Winry was holding him up just as much as he was holding her.

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry...

Al...

I'm so sorry, Al...

He couldn't talk anymore. He couldn't so much as say a single word, and holding her like this as she sobbed felt far too little, and far too late. He'd done this to her, and he'd killed Al, and none of it mattered because suddenly all he could do was just stand there and feel like the most awful, terrible, lost person in the world-

Because Al was gone.

He was somewhere he'd once called home, but it wasn't anymore, because Al wasn't here with him.

Risembool wasn't worth anything if Al and Winry weren't here with him for it.

And in that moment, standing there with Winry's arms around him and Roy at his back and his heart broken inside him, he realized he'd never felt more lonely in his entire life.

And he couldn't do anything to fix it.

I'm so sorry... Al, Winry, everyone... Al...

I'm SORRY...

Ed couldn't count how many moments they stood there together, Winry fists digging painfully into his back and her slim, changed form trembling in his arms. He couldn't talk anymore, every time he tried to apologize again the words robbed away in a broken breath and anguish whiplashing through him again; the only reason he was even still standing was because Winry was holding him up the same way he held her. It had to have lasted minutes, the cold wind cutting through them and Winry's gasps finally dwindling into small, hitched breaths of grief.

But finally, while Ed found himself still all but inconsolable, utterly incapable of getting more than a single broken beyond all ruin word out, Winry spoke to him for the first time.

"Welcome home, idiot," she mumbled, her voice just as thick and tremulous as his, and buried her face back into his shoulder.

For the first time since leaving Central well over a week ago, Roy let himself fully and truly relax.

He looked up hesitantly as Pinako wordlessly set a mug of something steaming down in front of him. Based off the day he'd had, he was hoping for something a little strong, even though he knew he shouldn't- but he wasn't about to ask. "Thank you," was all he said, cautiously reaching out to wrap both his hands around it without lifting it just yet. "This... is more gracious than I deserve."

The mechanic simply shook her head, moving to sit down across from him and going to her own drink. "Maybe it is, but if Winry is willing to have you here, then I can be, too. There's nothing to be gained from turning you out now." She paused, giving him a look that wasn't friendly, but not unkind, either. "You should drink that. Whiskey's not easy to get, out here."

Roy swallowed a weak grin, glancing back at his drink. Tea mixed with whiskey, then. "...I'm not much of a drinker, anymore," he put forth softly, but gave it no more pause than that before lifting it up off the table. "Again, thank you kindly." He broke off for a moment, glancing cautiously back off to the side.

Ed and Winry were still outside, sitting together in the dark, lit only by the lamps from inside the house. Winry was pressed close against him, arm around his side while Ed's rested over her shoulder, their heads leaning together, sometimes speaking quietly to each other, sometimes saying nothing at all, but one or both sets of shoulders hitching with another round of grief and crying. The Rockbells' dog had joined them outside at some point, crawled over with his head resting in Ed's lap with his tail thumping slowly against Winry's leg. Because it had looked like neither of them had been going to move any time soon, Roy had left his jacket out there, which at some point had ended up drawn around both of their shoulders, clutched in Ed's hand tightly almost like a blanket.

Sitting there like that, a brokenhearted and grieving pair of old childhood friends, it was only too easy, and painful, for Roy to see that they were missing one more.

He had joined Pinako inside rather swiftly, not wishing to intrude any longer on their anguishing reunion. Pinako had been just as shocked as her granddaughter, but had clearly decided to wait with him for the same reason, wishing to let the kids get themselves steady again before she went outside to properly see Ed for the first time in seven years. Roy had already told her about Al, and at the slow, somber sigh that had been his answer, he'd known that she'd suspected as such, for a long time.

That hadn't made it any easier, but he hoped it would make it easier for her to help Ed in the days to come.

After several moments, Roy cleared his throat uncomfortably, looking back to the mechanic. "I feel like I ought to apologize to you," he began, somewhat uncertainly- because of all the people he owed an apology to, Pinako and Winry Rockbell were perhaps at the very top of that list. "For always bringing such poor news and grief with me, whenever I've come here, I mean. I can promise that the only reason I've never told you this before now is because Ed asked me not to, and this was something that I felt needed to be his choice. If I'd been able to tell you, I would have."

Once again, the mechanic gave him a heavy sigh, her gaze, too, turned out the screened door to watch the trembling pair outside in the cold and the dark. "And I believe you, General. You brought Ed back home to us, late or not... there's no need to apologize for that." She broke off to turn a frown back in his direction, eyes darkening with an accusing light. "You told us that he was as good as dead. And Al, too, when he followed him."

He nodded slowly, swallowing another deep sigh. "Yes. Yes, I did, and... and, for that, too, I apologize. I wouldn't have put you through that if I'd known... I didn't understand the alchemy as well as I thought I did, back then, ma'am- Ed doesn't seem to really understand it, either. Back then, I believed we'd never see him again- and I know Ed and Al thought that'd be the case, too, when they left together." He hesitated again, then pushed forwards, voice dipping into an earnest sort of oath, trying to get her to understand. "Ms. Rockbell, if I'd known there was a chance- even the smallest one; if I'd ever known there was a chance they could come home, I would have told you that. I swear it. I'd never have-" Roy stopped, gritting his teeth, then just shook his head and swallowed the rest of his impassioned defense. Now wasn't the time or the place for this. If being angry with him for this unintended deceit helped her or Winry, then he had no right to take it from them.

But, his words remained the truth, all the same. He'd only told the Rockbells that Ed and Al were as good as dead to them because it had been the truth, back then, and they'd not deserved him to stand there and lie to them. The truth was harsh and cruel, and it had hurt very badly to say it- but the Rockbells hadn't deserved the disrespect of him lying to them.

So he'd stood there five years ago, and he'd told them that the children he'd taken from their home would never be coming back.

Pinako had said nothing. Winry, her hands shaking, and her blue eyes like fire, had screamed at him to get out.

He hadn't seen either of them since.

It went quiet again and Roy looked away, turning his gaze elsewhere throughout the room. Something old and tired ached in his chest, just sitting there, as his eye traveled further, and he sank a little more back into his seat. Pictures of Ed, Al, and Winry as children, pictures he'd never even seen before... pictures he almost didn't recognize, because it was just so impossible for him to imagine those three that happy and carefree now. Other ones, of Ed with the automail and Al in the armor, the ones that he knew so well. Then a few, rare others of Al back in the flesh, a younger Al, and different Al- one who walked like there was a hole by his side, a hole he was always seeking to fill...

And then, there was...

Roy's gaze stopped moving. He gulped.

And then, there was one picture, resting just off to his right, and half obscured by a vase of flowers.

A very young, very happy Winry, held in the arms of an older, blonde woman, and reaching out ecstatically to kiss an older, blue-eyed man's face.

A man and woman that he knew very, very well.

His heart lurched in sickened, sorrowful terror, and, slowly, Roy felt his gaze be drawn almost as if by force back to Pinako Rockbell.

Somehow, just like Ed had known this was something he needed to do, in that moment, Roy knew exactly what it was that he had to do.

"You deserve my deepest apologies, ma'am," he murmured at last. The words came out low and earnest but unsteady, no matter how much he tried to force them to be otherwise. He cleared his throat uncomfortably, trying to work his voice past the knot there. "For a great deal of offenses, but... I want for you to know. Your son, and his wife... I'm sorry."

Pinako stiffened, her eyes going ice cold, and Roy's heart lurched again.

"Please, don't misunderstand," he managed when he could speak again, though his voice was even unsteadier than before. "I'm not asking for your forgiveness. I know you can not give me that. I understand. But I just- want you to know that." He swallowed tightly, meeting her eyes even when everything in him begged to look away. "That's the worst decision I ever made in my life, and I never once thought what I did that day was okay. I've regretted it since the moment I pulled the trigger, and I can swear to you I will be working to try and make things right until I die."

He deserved, Roy knew, for her to throw him out then and there, just like Winry had years ago. He deserved nothing that they'd given him, and every nightmare and guiltridden ghost that had followed him in the years since. But this was something that he had to say, and that she deserved to hear. It wouldn't help her; no words could bring her son or Winry's parents back-

But surely it had to help, just a little, to know that their killer had not gone a day since without thinking of them.

It just shouldn't have taken him ten years to come back here and say it.

Pinako turned her eyes quite quickly away from him, had looked off almost the moment he'd started speaking. He could see just how much the memory pained her, no matter how well she hid it, and he kept his mouth shut this time, saying nothing more. He'd dredged up a century's worth of pain in one night, and while he deserved it all, they deserved none, and he wouldn't keep going any further. If she wanted silence, he'd give that to her.

Roy was surprised, however, when one long, suffocating minute after, Pinako spoke to him again.

"My son wrote to me once, from out there, during the war," she said quietly. The words were distant and sober, blanketed by a soft presence of pain he didn't think would ever, ever fade from her voice, Winry's eyes, or this house. "I think it was near the end, when he'd really seen the extent to what our forces were doing out there, and how wrong it was. ...He told me that the world had become three types of people, out in Ishval: the innocents being slaughtered. The monsters who slaughtered them with a smile. And... the scared kids the military had thrown out there to slaughter them too, who were too young to fight in such a war and knew it was just as wrong as he did, and only pulled the trigger because they didn't want to die themselves." She continued to look quietly out the door, watching as Winry's shoulders shook and Ed's trembling arms around her tightened, even further still- and then, with a long, heavy sigh, turned her gaze back to him.

There was old pain there. There wasn't, however, the accusation he'd been braced for.

"I think you've already proven which one of those you were," she said, nodding once at his eyepatch, "and been punished enough for it. Nothing makes it right- but nothing comes from me holding a grudge when I know my son wouldn't have, either. If my son could not hate them, and if Winry's learned to not hate you, either- then so can I, Mustang." She glanced back outside again, her gaze resting on Ed's shaking form. "Knowing what you must have done for Ed these past few months... you took care of him. You brought him back here to us. You didn't have to."

The words caught painfully in his throat again and he shook his head, stumbling over yet another apology. "Ed just- that's not- I just did the right thing; that doesn't make up-"

"Of course it doesn't make up for anything. But despite being part of the reason Winry's parents never came home, you're still the reason Ed did. And I can thank you for that, General." She gave him one last hard look, one that gave him no room for argument whatsoever- and then simply turned back to watch the two outside, lifting her own drink with an air of finality.

The discussion, clearly, was closed, no matter what he had to say about it.

Not quite forgiven- but not condemned anymore, either.

Something anguishing turned over in his chest, and for a terrible moment, Roy found himself too overwhelmed to say a single word.

"...Thank you, ma'am," he murmured at last, and swallowed the thickness of the words with another sip of his drink. A quick pass of his slightly trembling hand over his eye pushed the wetness away, and he swallowed tightly again, withdrawing back into silence.

Thank you.

Pinako said nothing to him after that, leaving him to sit there in silence, surrounded by the pictures of the family he'd destroyed and their hospitality for him all at once. It was entirely overwhelming and he found himself hardpressed to keep the unsteady hitches to his breath quiet, clutching his hands tightly together and keeping his mouth locked shut as he looked around the small home again. The place that he knew, more likely than not, he was going to have leave Ed, and that soon he was going to be taking the train ride back to Central- alone. An odd, almost nauseating mix of loneliness and guilt hit him again and he bowed his head, refusing to let himself give into that. The Rockbells deserved to have Ed back, and Ed deserved to have a home. It didn't matter that he'd miss him. All that was important was that the Rockbells would get him back after so long apart and, more importantly than that, that Ed would be happy here.

That was all that mattered.

If Ed would just be happy here.

And if Ed could manage to work up the strength of will to come back here, and Roy had been able to work up the strength of will to follow and at long last face this family he'd broken, he knew that he'd be able to work up the strength of will to leave Ed here with them.

When the time came.

Another gruff sigh met his ears, and Roy jumped a little, forcibly dragging his attention away from the uncertain future and the miserable past to land on Pinako once again. He cleared his throat uncomfortably, trying to push back the lump still making itself known there.

"You said Ed's still a State Alchemist now?" Pinako asked him, the accusing lilt back now now, her eyes narrowed. "Like before? Under you, I presume?"

Roy winced, even as his head dipped in another nod. He heard the words left unsaid, just as clearly as if she'd shouted them at him. He'd heard the haven't you gotten enough from yet? and when are you going to stop doing this to him and let him come home?

Haven't you taken enough from us?

"I'm sorry," he forced out quietly, wrapping both his hands back tightly around the mug. "You have no reason to believe me, but I promise, this was the best arrangement I could work out for him. For him- not for me. I have no intentions or plans to use him, or do anything at all for him, besides just what he wants himself. It's only for a year, and I promise, it won't be anything like before. Nothing dangerous at all, or anything that he doesn't want to do. I've worked it out so he can even stay here in Risembool with you, if he wants... all I want right now is what's best for him." He hesitated, biting his lip as he thought over how much he really ought to say about this just yet. "Ed didn't seem very keen on staying here before, but that might change now. He's... been terrified Winry was going to blame him."

Pinako shook her head with a soft laugh, looking back out at Ed again, and Roy couldn't help but nod back. "Believe me, I've tried to convince him otherwise. I think he even knew a little, on some level, that she wouldn't blame him, but... he just had to see it for himself." He sighed heavily, leaning back in his chair as he met Pinako's eyes again. "I've told Ed that if he wants to stay with me in Central, he can. I want him to at least have that option, if staying here is too hard for him." He waved a hand, starting to muse aloud. "But I really do think he's going to want to stay here, at least for a while, now that he's seen you'll welcome him back. If you'll take him, of course...?"

The look Pinako gave him then answered the question for him without words, almost insulted, and he managed a weak laugh, nodding again. "I just want to make sure, before any decisions are made. ...It won't be like how he was before, you know... Ed's different now. He... went through a lot." He hesitated again, knowing he had to phrase this carefully, knowing how little Ed would want him to say about everything he'd been through. "He's still going to need someone to help take care of him for a little while..."

Once again, the almost insulted look Pinako gave him told him exactly how prepared for this task she was, and that she'd known that was the truth- had known it for a while now. But this time the look quickly faded into one of sorrow as she looked back out at where Ed sat with Winry, still shivering and crying together in the dark, and the slow nod she gave him back was anything but smug this time.

"...I know," she said quietly, face falling further, and it took more will than Roy wanted to admit for him to nod back.

"...Well," Roy answered at length, "assuming he does choose to stay here of course... well, it'll be really good for him, I think. A good change of scenery and being here with you two, instead of just in Central, with only me to try and help him. I think this will help him a lot. And, he'd be safer, too, if I'm being honest..."

"Safer?" Pinako interrupted sharply, her eyes narrowing again. "What do you mean, safer? I thought you just told me he wouldn't be going on any dangerous missions anymore."

"What...?" Roy blinked, then bit his lip, wincing again. "Oh- no, that's not- I didn't mean it like that. He won't be taking missions anymore; that's now how I... it's nothing," he sighed heavily; a lame finish if there had ever been one. "I'm sorry. Don't mind me. Thinking aloud." He sent a dark look at the spiked tea and pushed it away from him a little. Damn thing; he'd barely had any and there it had gone, loosening his tongue-

"You just told me it would be dangerous for Ed if he stayed with you in Central, General Mustang," Pinako cut in bitingly, her eyes flashing. "You had better explain yourself right this instant, and don't you dare sit there and act like it isn't my business. Why would it be dangerous for him there with you?!"

"I-" Roy cut himself off, shifting uncomfortably once again. Damn it. He really hadn't been planning on having this discussion at all with any of them yet, had wanted to wait, and give Ed at least a few days to get used to being here- and he'd definitely intended to have it with Ed alone. Certainly not with Pinako Rockbell first. But the mechanic was glaring at him now, a harsh woman who'd worked with military men for decades and wasn't about to let him talk his way out of this- and who every last reason to sit there and demand an explanation from him, when it came to Ed's safety.

He sighed heavily.

This was most likely not going to end well.

"Ms. Rockbell," he began at last, hesitantly shifting forward to rest his elbows on the table, meeting her harsh, unyielding gaze once again. Best to do this carefully... "I've not told Ed any of this yet, and I'd appreciate it if you let me discuss it with him myself when the time comes. I want him to be able to decide where he wants to stay without this weighing on him. But... I've been reassigned."

"Reassigned?" she questioned sternly, eyes flashing again. "Why does that make it dangerous for Ed?"

Roy paused again.

"...Because I've been reassigned to Ishval."

There was a heavy moment of silence.

"And," he went on somberly, voice subdued in the sudden blanket of surprise that had fallen down over the entire room, "well, it's not concrete yet, I can change the assignment if I need to- if Ed needs me to. If he needs me to, I will. But... I think I'm going to go. And that's the problem, ma'am. ...Ed can't come with me. If I go, then I will have to leave him behind."

Once again, there was another heavy moment of crushing silence. Roy's heart squeezed painfully in the moment of quiet, aching as Pinako stared at him, the distress beating through him intermingled with regret so potent it hurt and a bitter truth that he hated to say. For a long few seconds there was only the ticking of the clock; neither spoke, but at last Roy swallowed and licked his dry lips, trying to begin the explanation. To say why he had to go, and why he just couldn't bring Ed with him, but that he'd change it if he had to, if Ed needed him to stay, he would, but-

"What?"

Both Roy and Pinako jumped, jerking around in unison. The guilt already building behind his heavy words took a 180, swinging around to transform into silent shock.

Ed and Winry stood in the doorway.

Ed stared at him, mouth still open, jacket hanging limply around his shoulders and hands fallen by his sides, face flushed damp and hair disheveled but the hiccuping sobs from before gone. His eyes, reddened and sore, were still stained with grief- but now they were widened with shock.

Hurt.

Betrayal.

Roy opened his mouth, then shut it, outstretched hand falling uselessly back down to his side.

Ed had heard every word.